3/23-3/29
The last week of a session is full of high energy, excitement, frustration and reflection.
From the Spark Studio
The spark studio enjoyed their space quest up to the very last day. Building their spaceship was a monumental feat. It was awesome to watch them plan, vote, disagree and try again. There were plenty of frustrations, a few tears and a hero inspired pig pile to help everyone feel the love again 🙂 One of my highlight moments was watching the discussion of what to do with one hero who had chosen not to help. At first, pure justice was the prevailing voice: If you didn’t help, you don’t get to participate during the exhibition. Then one hero spoke up on the side of mercy: we should let her participate. Eventually they reached a compromise between justice and mercy: she gets to participate but she has to clean up the area on her own and doesn’t get a controller. As the particular hero started to clean up the area on her own, another hero jumped up and helped her. Soon, almost all (there were a few heroes still voting for pure justice) the heroes were helping her clean up. It was beautiful to watch the discussion of justice and mercy and then see how desirous this tribe is help one another. I love their good hearts and love that they get a chance to make these hard decisions on their own.
From the Elementary Studio
Watching a group of young people plan an exhibition from start to finish is inspiring. At first, they disagree, leave a million missing holes, and appear decently unorganized. Then through subsequent meetings, feedback from their fellow travelers and the rising up of a few strong leaders – they pull together and create an awesome experience. I am so grateful for this real world event planning opportunity they take on.
The day after exhibition is always a highlight for me. We enjoy both reflection and celebration. These heroes are wise. They know what went well. They know what needs to be improved. Some were decently disappointed in how their business succeeded. Some were thrilled. All had changes and improvements to make for the actual business fair.
One of the most intriguing conversations to which I listened was the discussion about how many hours of work the heroes should set as their studio goal for the week break. Emotions ran high as some heroes tried to expand the work hours while others tried to keep it lower. It brought up the questions: Do you set a lower goal that you know you can accomplish? Do you set a higher goal you might not reach but one that will challenge you? Do you set a higher goal because it will help everyone in the studio achieve more? Do you set a lower goal so that everyone in the studio feels like they accomplished their goal? It was awesome to see how much heroes want to help one another; even if it was expressed in tears of frustration. They are in process of creating their culture and that is a challenging process.
Celebration is also an important part of the last day of the session. Watching the heroes run around delivering thank you notes to the businesses they interviewed and listening to the chaos of “Pit” was so enjoyable. School should be fun and these heroes make it just that!
